Cat Chats series, 1 of 2
Your Cat Isn't Difficult: What Your Cat Is Actually Trying to Tell You
By Dr Ryan Morgan, Onward Veterinary Services ·
If you have ever apologized to your veterinarian for your cat, you are not alone.
The affectionate cat vanishes when the carrier comes out. They howl in the car, freeze on the table, or turn into teeth and claws. It is easy to call a cat like that difficult, or dramatic, or bad at the vet.
Here is the other reading: your cat may not be giving us a hard time. They may be having a hard time.
At Onward, behaviour is not something we try to overcome. Behaviour is information, and learning to read it changes the whole veterinary experience.
Behaviour works like an iceberg
Picture a cat sitting on an iceberg. Above the water is what we can see: hissing, scratching, biting, hiding, bolting, house soiling.
That is the tip. Below it sits fear, pain, frustration, conflict, illness, loss of control, a stressful environment, a bad experience last time, a need going unmet.
Stopping the behaviour does not address why it happened. The question is what the cat is trying to tell us.
Cats communicate, and we are not always listening
Cats are good at communicating. Humans are not always good at receiving it.
A frightened cat does not necessarily hiss. Some freeze. Some crouch, tuck their limbs under themselves, press into the back of the carrier, go hypervigilant, stop taking treats, stop responding to you at all.
Growling, swatting and biting usually come last, after the quieter signals have gone unanswered.
The question is not how much restraint a cat will tolerate. It is what they are telling us before they feel they have to escalate.
Stressors stack
Take the appointment from your cat's side.
Your cat is asleep at home. The carrier appears. They are caught and put inside. The carrier moves, then the car: vibration, acceleration, strange sounds, unfamiliar smells. They arrive somewhere they may never have been. There are dogs, other cats, new people, more smells. Then a stranger reaches for them.
One stressor is manageable. Carrier plus car plus strange room plus smells plus handling plus restraint is a different thing entirely.
By the time a cat is called fractious, they are often just overwhelmed.
Pain can look like personality
Pain does not always look painful in a cat.
A cat may still get onto the bed, but start using a chair to get there. They may stop sleeping upstairs. They may stop tolerating being picked up. They may groom less, play less, hide more, or get short with the other pet in the house.
Those changes are easy to file under personality, or age. Sometimes that is what they are. But a change from your cat's normal deserves a look, and nobody knows your cat's normal better than you do.
Giving a cat some control changes things
Cats cope better with options. Can they stay partly inside the carrier? Can they watch us before we approach? Can we pause? Can they retreat? Will they come forward for a treat on their own? Does all of it have to happen today?
Veterinary care still sometimes means doing things a cat would rather we did not. Respecting how a cat feels does not mean skipping the medicine. It means finding the least stressful way to get it done.
Cooperation is not something we demand from a cat. It is something we set the conditions for.
Four things you can do before the next appointment
Get the carrier out of storage. It should not be the mysterious box that appears right before something unpleasant happens. Leave it where your cat can investigate it, sleep in it, find treats in it.
Put familiar bedding inside. Something that already smells like home.
Keep the carrier steady in the car. A light cover reduces what some cats have to look at, as long as air still moves through it.
Tell us about last time, good and bad. If the car or the exam is reliably frightening, say so before the appointment rather than during it. Some cats may benefit from an individual plan for the visit, which can include appropriately prescribed medication given before you leave home.
A better question
Instead of asking how we make this cat tolerate veterinary care, ask how we make veterinary care tolerable for this cat.
Sometimes the answer is handling. Sometimes it is medication before the visit. Sometimes it is the room.
And for some cats, bringing the care to them removes most of the stack before the exam starts. No car. No waiting room. No unfamiliar table. We meet the cat where they already feel safe.
House call care is not the right answer for every cat or every medical situation. It makes a larger point: good feline medicine should adapt to the cat wherever we reasonably can.
Your cat is talking
Next time your cat hides, hesitates, growls, or does something new, hold off on the label. Get curious instead.
The behaviour you wish would go away is often the information you needed.